School Teacher from Hunan Province Twice Sentenced to Forced Labour

Name: Zhou Xiaohong
Gender: Female
Age: 44
Address: Residential building in the 302 Geological Team of Chenzhou
Occupation: Elementary school teacher
Date of Most Recent Arrest: August 2008
Most Recent Place of Detention: Baimalong Forced Labour Camp
City: Chenzhou
Province: Hunan
Persecution Suffered: Sleep deprivation, forced labour, brainwashing, forced injections/drug administration, beatings, imprisonment, force-feedings, extortion, fired from workplace, physical restraint, home ransacked, interrogation, detention, remaining in strenuous positions for long periods of time.
Key Persecutors: Chen Yunqing, Zhao Shuaiqun, Yuan Lihua, Long Liyun, Tang Luyun, Zhu Jinxin, Zheng Xia, Huang Chunmei, Wang Yan, Fu Jing, Liu Jie and Shi Jun.

Ms. Zhou Xiaohong has been dismissed from her job, her home has been ransacked seven times, and she has been arrested four times since the persecution began in July 1999. All of this happened because she persists in her belief in Falun Gong. Her arrests in March 2005 and August 2008 resulted in sentences of 12 months and 15 months, respectively. She was detained at the Baimalong Forced Labour Camp, where she was brutally tortured.

Accounts of Persecution

Ms. Zhou was teaching her class in September 2001 when Zhou Lingzhi, the principal of the school, called her to the office and told her that she could no longer be a teacher there because she had talked about Falun Gong in her classes.

Officials from the 610 Office [an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong] ransacked Ms. Zhou's home seven times between January 2001 and August 2008. They confiscated Falun Gong books, audio and video tapes, as well as other personal belongings.

Chen Yunqing and other officers from the Anren County Domestic Security Division broke into Ms. Zhou's home and arrested her one evening in January 2003. She was detained at the Anren County Detention Centre for more than four months.

While Ms. Zhou and other practitioners were distributing leaflets exposing the persecution of Falun Gong in the Dongjiang area of the city in March 2005, officers from Dongjiang Police Station arrested her and detained her at the Zixing City Detention Centre. She was often beaten about the head and back with electric batons. When she was transferred to the Chenzhou First Detention Centre, she held a hunger strike to protest her persecution. She was subsequently tied to a chair and injected with unknown drugs, then was later sentenced to Baimalong Forced Labour Camp.

When Ms. Zhou was working as a waitress at a restaurant in Chenzhou in August 2008, officers from the Beihu District Police Department and security officers from her workplace arrested her, and sent her to the brainwashing centre at the Beihu District Chinese Communist Party (CCP) School. She shouted out "Falun Gong is good" on the first day there, and was struck about the face and body with the heel of a policeman's shoe. The beatings continued for the entire morning. Since Ms. Zhou refused to cooperate with them, she was sent to the Chenzhou Detention Centre.

When she arrived at the detention centre, the guards pushed her to the ground, stripped off her clothes and put her in a prison uniform. She was given only two meals per day, with very little food in them. Three guards pulled her out of her cell one time and beat her in the corridor. She was sentenced to forced labour for the second time on August 25th, 2008.

First Time in Labour Camp

Ms. Zhou was sent to the Seventh Section, Second Team in the labour camp on April 15th, 2005. Since the first day of her detention, guards Zhao Shuaiqun, Yuan Lihua, Long Liyun, Tang Luyun, Zhu Jinxin, and Zheng Xia started to torture her. She was not allowed to use the toilet, she was deprived of sleep, and she was forced to stand all day with her hands tied behind her back. She was tortured like this for 43 days.

The guards forced her to watch videos that slandered Falun Gong day and night, and at other times she had to work more than 15 hours per day. When she went on a hunger strike, the guards and inmates working for the guards pried open her mouth and force-fed her. They also injected her with unknown drugs.

Ms. Zhou was brutally tortured by a group of people on February 12th-23rd, 2006. She was taken to a room on February 13th, where inmates Huang Chunmei, Wang Yan, and Fu Jing tortured her. They forced her to stand still while they slapped her face, punched, and kicked her. They poured cold water on the floor, then pushed her to the ground and beat her. They also stood on her hands and feet, and poked her arms and hands with sharp instruments.

The following day Ms. Zhou was forced to bend down all day, with her weight resting on the backs of her legs, and they constantly beat her. As a result, the flesh on her shoulders and arms was split open. They deprived her of sleep that night and twisted her ears, slapped her face, and poured water on her to keep her awake. When she fell asleep, she was brutally beaten.

At around 8:00 p.m. on February 19th, when Ms. Zhou refused to write a guarantee statement to renounce her belief, she was bound in a tight cloth, her left arm was tied behind her back, and her mouth was stuffed with dirty sanitary pads. She was then pushed down onto a chair by a table, as they forced her to write the statement.

Ms. Zhou was brutally beaten by inmates on the morning of February 20th, 2006. One inmate kicked her between the legs and several other inmates beat her while she was on the floor. One of them stepped on her face, while two of them kicked her. Inmate Tang Hongxia used a metal spoon to pry open her mouth and then used chopsticks to poke at her throat until she was spitting up blood. They then stuffed her mouth with dirty sanitary pads again. After the beating, she was not able to eat and had difficulty walking.

Second Time in Labour Camp

Ms. Zhou was sentenced to Baimalong Forced Labour Camp for the second time in August 2008, where she was detained in the Seventh Section, First Team.

When guards Long Liyun and Tang Luyun saw her doing the exercises one day, they ordered an inmate to beat her. Her feet were subsequently covered with bruises and she was not able to stand up and walk properly. They bound her in a tight cloth and forced her to stand for a long period of time, while her mouth was stuffed with dirty rags and sealed with tape. She was then tied to a chair and forced to watch videos slandering Falun Gong.

Ms. Zhou went on a hunger strike on September 26th, and guards Long Liyun, Liu Jie, Shi Jun and Zheng Xia forced-fed her for 15 days. She was also taken to the hospital and given injections. Ms. Zhou was transferred to the Fourth Section on October 10th, where she was constantly tortured by inmates and deprived of sleep on October 10th-23rd.

After the torture Ms. Zhou had scars all over her body and had high blood pressure. She coughed a lot, had difficulty breathing, and had irregular menstrual periods. She became very weak, sweat a lot, and was unable to stand up for any length of time.

A few days before her release on October 10th, 2008, guard He Hongling told Ms. Zhou that she would suffer more brutal torture if she returned to the camp for a third time, and threatened her not to expose the persecution that she was subjected to there. When she was released, she was forced to pay more than 100 yuan¹ for her treatment during her hunger strike.

Note

1. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2010/8/25/228797.html